Here’s a topic I’ve been going back-and-forth on, and talking to a number of full time domain investors, it seems everyone has a little different approach. The question is – on “For Sale” landing pages on your domains, how should you balance between listing a BIN price, leaving it open with “Make Offer” or leaving it even more open with “Price Upon Request.”
So far I’ve found there’s a bit of a bifurcation between people who think you should not list a price, and those who think you do. The thinking here is, if you name the price you could be leaving money on the table. On the flip side, those in favor of BIN pricing make the point that not naming a price means you’ll sell less names.
Most people I’ve talked to that invest in domain names for a living have a balanced approach, as for how they balance it, well there’s definitely no silver bullet there. What seems to make the most sense to me is to categorize my domains into three different buckets:
- Cashflow names – domains you want to sell to generate cashflow, as long as you lock in a certain ROI on the sale, you should be happy, even if I do leave some money on the table.
- Premium names – domains that you made a more serious investment in, you’re looking for the right buyer who will pay full retail for the name.
- Longshots – domains you took a chance on, maybe you went with an extension like .AI or .GG, maybe it’s a four-word .COM you think has a chance. Longshots you might be okay making a lower ROI on because you’re really just trying to see if you can sell them at all.
My current thinking is to use “For Sale” landing pages with BIN pricing on cashflow names and longshots, and stick with “Price Upon Request” for premium names. For cashflow names I’ll set an ROI in the 5x – 10x range, for longshots I’ll set an ROI in the 2x – 4x range.
Efty is my go-to for landing pages and it’s pretty easy to make these changes over there and experiment with it a bit. Additionally, they have a good variety of different designs and layouts to play with so I’ll likely try a few different styles of each to see if one performs better than another.
Well there’s my two cents, what do you think?
Sort of similar, but i also pricing my one word .io or .ai with mid five figures. Setting up high expectations. I think i moved on to pricing everything, with exception of Premium names. On those i will usually price it, unless its a super premium (50+k). I found when i price it, it sets up expectation. Last year i sold 1 .ai domain for half the asking price. Which was 50k. I was very happy, and buyer got a good deal. I am more of mid range / cashflow names, with a few exceptions. Longshots, if i missed i drop, but otherwise i will price them similar to cashflow names. Had 3 sales in May in low 4 figure range. For size of my portfolio its pretty good sell through. I think big part is a) whats your landing page. I personally hate efty, i find it is very basic page that doesnt allow for much marketing creativity. I used Dan / Epik, half and half, and i put everything on afternic. After i moved from efty, my sales improved. I think UX wise Dan is better, and Epik is much more customizable. For me efty was too constraining. I come from marketing background, and i just could deal with limited customization. I discovered Epik this winter, and hasnt gone back. Dan, has been good to me for few years now.